Texas mule deer public draw hunts

X7ahunter

Active Member
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Last year I began applying as a non resident for Texas sheep and mule deer draw hunts. On average how many points does it take to draw say Black Gap for mule deer? I know sheep is jus a pipe dream but I'd like to hope mule deer isnt
 
Texas has a bonus points system so it's purely luck of the draw. 1 point or 15 doesn't matter much when there's over 1000 names in the pot. I applied for close to 100 hunts in Texas last year and drew 1.
 
I have drawn about one dozen tags in the Texas public hunts. Both WT and MD, Aoudad, and Scimitar oryx. Some with very few hunt permits, some with a lot of them. I have anywhere between 1-16 points. Just need to be lucky!
 
Mule deer might as well be a pipe dream too. Thousands of people apply for something like 8-15 permits and there will be a 10-20% success rate. I always wonder why they can’t allow for more permits with such terrible harvest stats.
 
Mule deer might as well be a pipe dream too. Thousands of people apply for something like 8-15 permits and there will be a 10-20% success rate. I always wonder why they can’t allow for more permits with such terrible harvest stats.
Interesting, is there not many deer on the public areas or is it people just don't hunt them properly?
 
TPWD should open up a lot more state parks and wildlife management areas to public hunting to increase hunting opportunities. There are a lot of small parks and recreational areas which could be hunted with muzzleloaders and archery equipment if only TPWD would include them in the public hunt drawings.
Public hunting has been kind to me as I"ve drawn about a dozen hunts over the span of 25+ years...
 
A Texas public land draw mule deer hunt will be low permit numbers because you're hunting a very limited amount of land compared to a unit in a western State.

The mule deer tags they issue in Texas draws are about the right amount for the acreage.
 
My buddy and I started putting in for mule deer in 1996..............still haven’t drawn

back then it was just “gun deer” that you put in for and somewhere about 15 years ago they separated the mule deer draw from the whitetail.
 
I have been putting in for antelope, deer, sheep, gator, auadad, since 2007 and i drew one tag a couple years ago for murphree gator and the hurricane cancelled it. Kinda like kentucky elk draw except the odds are like that for all species. Awful odds
 
Drew Black Gap Archery with 4 points (luck). I have been somewhat lucky in 20 years I have drawn about 6 tags and daughter about 3 so not terrible. Never a MD rifle tag I do think those are pipe dream. I will keep at it, someone has to get the tag!
 
I just hunted black gap archery. It took me 12 points to draw that. I talked to the manger there, he can see how many points it took to draw on the rifle hunt. He said the low end they have have some people in the 14-15 point range that draw yearly.

Black Gap is very low deer density and hard to hunt bow country. They run nearly 100% on their rifle success and run less than 1 in 16 on their archery success. Most people just sit water and hope to get lucky. I tried not to do that and only saw 2 bucks. Not to mention they have bow and rifle backwards for the rut. The rifle runs mid Jan when the deer are rutting, the archery is mid oct and mid nov and the big bucks are hiding or nocturnal then.
 

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